UNCW department head plays priest in locally filmed horror movie

George Zervos, a former Greek Orthodox priest and chair of UNCW's Department of Philosophy and Religion, was a consultant of the locally filmed horror movie ‘The Conjuring.' Photo courtesy of Dr. Scott James, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Dept. of Philosophy and Religion, UNCW.

Published: Sunday, July 21, 2013 at 10:00 a.m.

Last Modified: Friday, July 19, 2013 at 2:21 p.m.

Green vomit, levitation, body contortions and a spidery-haired haint with murder on her mind make a mother's possession seem frighteningly real in the locally filmed horror movie "The Conjuring," which opened nationwide on Friday.

Director James Wan and the movie's crew went to great lengths to get the story of one Rhode Island family's haunting correct, including tapping University of North Carolina Wilmington religion scholars to re-create exorcism scenes in Latin.

Although the scenes of demonic possession accurately follow the family's account of what happened in their Harrisville, R.I., home in the 1970s, George Zervos, a former Greek Orthodox priest and chair of UNCW's Department of Philosophy and Religion, said possessions are plausible, but they are known to occur covertly.

"What I know of that spiritual battle that is supposed to be happening between good and evil and demons and angels – from what I know of that – it's extremely subtle," Zervos said during an interview at his campus offices. "Someone can be possessed for years without showing any manifestations or could be being used or manipulated. See, what the Eastern fathers would say is, ‘Satan hides.' He does his best work in hiding."

"The Conjuring" is spooking crowds across the country this weekend with its gripping tale of the real-life experiences of paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren (played by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) as they attempt to save the Perron family from a case of demonic possession so horrifying that the investigators spoke little of it for years.

Audiences have gasped at what happens to Carolyn Perron (Lili Taylor), a loving wife and mother who suffers most at the hand of the spirit that possesses her.

In the haunted-house thriller, which filmed in Wilmington a little more than a year ago, it's 1970 when Carolyn and Roger Perron (Taylor and Ron Livingston) and their five daughters move into their dream farmhouse, only to swiftly realize they are not its sole occupants. As the story of demonic possession unfolds, the Perron girls and their mother experience a succession of terrifying experiences, the likes of which Zervos said Hollywood often exaggerates.

"All the hype about people levitating and all that kind of thing, I don't know," he said. "I haven't personally seen anything like that. Hollywood is Hollywood. That's not to say that it doesn't happen, but I haven't been there."

Until this spring.

Demon fighter

In the film, Zervos appears as a Catholic priest who's performing an exorcism with help from the Warrens. Audiences will know him as the "grizzled bulldog of an old exorcist priest," he said.

His colleague, UNCW religion associate professor and Catholicism expert Diana Pasulka, who was a history and language consultant on the film, passed his photo to casting directors.

"They wanted a man who could speak Latin and look like he could battle a demon," Pasulka said.

Zervos, as it turned out, wasn't available, so the historians suggested that Paul Townend, chair of the university's History Department, stand in.

He was too young and good looking, Zervos said.

"Evidently (Pasulka) sent them a picture of me and they said, ‘Oh that's the one – he has the look,' " he said. "I guess the bottom line is that they wanted someone who looked more like an old, rough, beaten-up priest who's been doing this for awhile."

In reality, Zervos said he wasn't directly involved in an exorcism during the decade he was a priest.

"But I was in a consultation that was going on once. They had an audiotape of a woman who was supposedly possessed and she was just rambling on and saying weird stuff. So some other priests and other clergy were going to go and try to exorcise her," he said. "In the real world, people are really scared of that kind of thing. The less you say, the less you're likely to have repercussions, or whatever. The modern church has cut a lot of the traditional exorcism rites down for convenience. They maybe read a handful. And they don't really talk about it. There's this mystique around the exorcism."

Zervos said he felt comfortable reciting Latin for the film, but he wasn't intimately familiar with the Roman Catholic exorcism rite.

"I go in and it was a dimly-lit room," he said. "They bring me this book and it's a Catholic missal – a priest's prayer book – from 1868. There's pages and pages of exorcisms. And the script wasn't this block English script we use – it was very stylized – so I had to work with that a little bit."

The scene – which was filmed at The Carolinian Inn on Market Street and was edited down to two brief, hectic flashbacks – is based on footage collected by the Warrens during an alleged possession.

"They actually had a video of the Warrens doing an exorcism and were playing it right there on a video in the room as they set up the scene. They wanted to make it as authentic as possible to that original exorcism," he said. "I can't say that my perspective has changed too much on these types of things over time, except that I'm much less inclined to accept a second-hand or third-hand version about a story. There are a lot of tremendously superstitious people out there that overdo stuff like this. And the academician in me says, ‘Hold it – I need to see some documentation somewhere.'"

Proud, but not brave

Despite his lack of real-world experience with exorcisms, Zervos said the scene mimicked the intensity one would expect to encounter in the battle for someone's soul.

"There was a lot of emotion in that scene and a lot of screaming, and that's all happening at my feet," he said. "So what I'm supposed to do is just read. You don't stop just because of whatever's happening – even if you get attacked – you keep reading somehow."

Although a large chuck of his work on the scene was edited down to a few seconds of frantic reciting, and he's not a fan of the horror genre, Zervos said he's proud to have been involved in the local project.

He isn't sure he would have been as brave as the Perron family, though.

"What kills me about these types of stories – you hear a knock in your house and there they go down in the basement. I'd be out the door and gone down the road staying at a motel," he said. "You run from that. You do not mess with that. That's the first lesson: When something like that is going on, the farther away you can get and disassociate yourself, the better. You don't dive into the pit.

"Of course, that's my perspective as a basic coward when it comes to things like this."